In news announced just ahead of International Women’s Day on Friday, the federal government said that women who qualify for federally funded paid parental leave will qualify to have superannuation paid alongside, helping to close the deep seated disparity between the financial security of men and the women who choose to have children and be a caregiver of those children.
It will be a start, but there’s a long way to go to close that gap for women who don’t qualify for a federally funded parental leave scheme or those who take up other care responsibilities that stop them from earning an income altogether.
The battle for equity for women and minority groups is a long one, and as we can see in countries elsewhere such as the US, which is rolling back abortion rights, never occurs in a straight line.
That’s true of all social, environmental, or political movements. They mostly find enormous pushback as soon as the power dynamic looks like shifting.
Check out the misogynistic wave sweeping young boys in schools thanks to women’s arch enemy Andrew Tate, who encourages boys to treat women as servants and worse. His influence is forcing female teachers from the classroom thanks to the age old practice of ganging up with four or five other boys, enough to upset the balance for an entire classroom. Girls are getting quieter as a result, shrinking back in their seats. Lest they be slut shamed, body shamed or whatever nasty thing is could be coming.
That sitting back quietly is a muscle memory for women that’s not going to fade as fast as optimists like to think. All is not well in the equity movement. Anyone in sustainability and climate action knows that the battle continues… for a long time.
In sustainability and climate we see pushback even now, after the hottest year on record and disasters starting to pile up from wild weather.
But still, the leader of the Coalition Peter Dutton has the nerve to tell us that offshore windfarms kill whales. Channelling precisely the words of Donald Trump, the man trying to be the US president again, sensing that the climate for him is perfect for a resurrection of misogyny, racism, extreme right wing xenophobia and climate denial. Shall we go on? Yes, we shall.
Lest those who only read headlines get the wrong idea and believe the hyperbole that he will help America’s forgotten people or the “deplorables”, as Hilary Clinton so wrongly put it, Team Trump has a full policy agenda to make the position of the US president a dictatorship.
It’s like any new relationship – love affair or otherwise: in the early days, the person circling your friendship/intimate group will tell you who they really are. Later, they’ll hide it. Trump is second time round, but we have discovered people who are nominally independent, lefty and green are starting to think he got a few things right.
Always remember the lesson from Pauline Hansen – put out so many policies that at least one or two of them will land with almost everyone.
So how are women doing in the built environment – that special amazing sector that contains one of the biggest blocks to female empowerment – in construction – and an outperformer – in sustainability?
Fifteen years after we kicked off with our first newsletter, it’s a vastly different world in sustainability and a somewhat different world in construction.
When we tentatively ventured into the bright green world at what was then the Green Cities conference in Brisbane, before we’d launched a single newsletter, women were ruling the green waves.
There were so many.
We slowly got to interview and know as many as we could, and we followed their success over the years. We were not surprised the green building movement was women dominated; it’s about caring for others and the planet, after all.
Yes, men almost always made the buildings, decided where they needed to go, largely how they looked and how and if they were funded at all, but it was women saying, “hey, let’s put some caveats on what comes out the other end”.
For a while, women at the top of sustainability got paid more than men. Remember that survey that revealed women ahead of the men on top pay levels? We were as shocked as everyone else.
It didn’t take long for men to get in on the act.
And they were welcomed with open arms. They held the keys to change, after all, right? And they probably still run most of the big decisions, let’s be honest.
But we reckon the voices are now united.
On the eve of the 15th Green Building Council of Australia conference, now called Transform, about to take place next week, we would like to thank the enormous body of work those early green women starters did. There are too many to name, but so many of them have risen to serious positions of power and influence.
As they should.
So thanks, gals and thanks to the guys who supported them and now work alongside.